Santa Cruz County History - Executive Order 9066 and the Residents of Santa Cruz County

Santa Cruz Sentinel-News. March 28, 1943. p. 1

JAP NATIONALITY QUESTIONS PUT TO SUPREME COURT

San Francisco, March 27 (AP) - The U.S. circuit court of appeals today propounded three questions to the U.S. supreme court to learn its views on the constitutionality of the order excluding American citizens of Japanese ancestry from the west coast.

The lower court's questions arose during its consideration of appeals of Gordon Kiyoshi Hirabayashi and Minoru Yasui who were convicted of violating sections of the exclusion order. Both are American citizens.

These were the questions asked:

Did the exclusion order constitute "a constitutional exercise of the war power of the president, derived from the constitution and statutes of the United States?"

Did the order for Japanese to report to federal authorities and orders to obey curfew rules before exclusion was ordered, fall under the constitutional exercise of war powers?

If the answer to these questions is affirmative, was a criminal offense involved in violation of the orders?

Copyrighted by the Santa Cruz Sentinel-News. Reproduced by permission.